North Beach signal changes due before Art Week; committee backs event limits and cultural plan

New signal timing at several of North Beach’s most congested intersections, including 71st Street at Indian Creek Drive and at Abbott Avenue, should take effect next week, before Art Week, the city’s transportation director told a Miami Beach commission committee on Monday, Nov. 9.

Here is what the Public Safety and Neighborhood Quality of Life Committee did, according to the meeting’s video and its auto-generated transcript. The city had not posted minutes or an after-action report as of Tuesday morning, so the outcomes below come from the transcript.

North Beach traffic

The city is retiming 17 critical intersections, the director said. Miami-Dade County has approved the first 10, among them Indian Creek Drive and Collins Avenue at 63rd Street, Abbott Avenue at Indian Creek Drive and at 69th Street, and 71st Street at Indian Creek Drive and at Abbott Avenue. The other seven are under county review and are expected before the end of the year.

Police told the committee that two officers work 71st Street from 3 to 7 p.m., and two more public service specialists are being added. Commissioner Monica Matteo-Salinas turned a pending referral into a resolution to station traffic specialists at 69th Street’s intersections with Harding and Abbott avenues. The committee supported it, along with a pilot that would make 69th Street west of Collins one-way westbound during the afternoon rush, which staff said would first need study with police. Commissioner Tanya K. Bhatt sponsored the item, the agenda shows.

Events on Lummus Park

The committee sent the Art Deco Neighborhood Association’s requests on special events, including where events may be held and limits on fee waivers, to the full commission with a favorable recommendation. Staff said the fee waivers for longtime events held north of 13th Street, such as the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Art Deco Weekend, Pride and the Air and Sea Show, expire in fiscal 2028. Questions about event fees were folded into a broader referral that will return to the committee; the transcript gives conflicting dates for when. A Red Sidewalks story last week laid out the waivers.

Cultural plan, food trucks and West Avenue

• Cultural Currents, the city’s first five-year cultural master plan, won a favorable recommendation 2-1. Matteo-Salinas voted no, saying the plan “just isn’t ready yet.” Consultants said the plan has five goals and 48 strategies and drew 453 survey responses.
• Mobile businesses on public property: the committee backed a narrower version of the pilot program, a one-year trial near 43rd Street and the Fontainebleau. The zoning change also goes to the Planning Board.
• West Avenue Phase II: staff said Lincoln Court should be substantially finished in the first or second week of December, with Bay Road north of Lincoln Road about a month later. Lincoln Road from Alton Road to West Avenue, and West Avenue from Lincoln Road to 17th Street, are to reopen for Art Basel. No vote was taken.
• Permitting: the interim building director reported that about 92% of permits are issued within four review cycles.

At the start of the meeting, the chair announced that items on the 5th Street pedestrian bridge, signs, the lobbyist ordinance, the Fontainebleau employee shuttle and temporary structures were deferred, and the North Beach Log Cabin item was deferred by its sponsor.